The three reigning MVPs who were traded following their prolific season

By Joe Belock

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Dec 09, 2017 | 11:11 PM

Giancarlo Stanton is just the third reigning MVP to get traded. The common thread in all three cases? All three were salary dumps.

Eddie Collins, 1914

The Columbia University product won the 1914 AL MVP award, hitting .344 and leading the AL with 122 runs scored. The second baseman led the Philadelphia A's to World Series titles in 1910, '11 and '13) as part of Connie Mack's famed $100,000 Infield. When Collins rebuffed Mack's offer of a longterm contract (a rarity in those days), the A's shipped the future Hall of Famer to the White Sox for $50,000 on Dec. 8. He helped the Sox win two AL pennants but is probably best remembered for being one of the few Chicago players to not be involved in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

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Alex Rodriguez, 2003

Alex Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees in a salary dump. (NICK WASS/AP)

A-Rod won the first of his three AL MVPs in 2003 on a last-place team, leading the majors with 47 home runs, driving in 118 and scoring an AL-high 124 runs. But A-Rod was only three seasons into his record 10-year, $252 million contract, and with team owner Tom Hicks in dire financial straits, Texas looked to dump its lone star. A blockbuster deal to Boston for Manny Ramirez and pitching prospect Jon Lester fell through in December when the Players Association rejected A-Rod's request to give back guaranteed salary. Texas finally unloaded him in February to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano, and A-Rod won two more MVPs, a World Series and earned a year-long suspension for PED use while in the Bronx.

Giancarlo Stanton, 2017

Giancarlo Stanton is just the third MVP to be traded after his MVP season. (Joe Skipper/Getty Images)

Marlins slugger claimed NL MVP with 59 home runs (22 more than he'd ever hit before) and 132 RBI. But the nearly $300 million he is owed is out of the Marlins' league, so baseball's all-time leaders in salary dumps did what they do best, shipping him to the Yankees for Starlin Castro and two minor-leaguers.